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Guided Meditation: Release

Good morning, good day, greetings.

One of the examples I like to give has to do with holding something. Imagine someone is holding something in their hand, and they've gotten the idea that they're supposed to always be holding something in their hand. Like this is one of the most important things in life, that it almost doesn't matter what it is, but you always should have something. And so, if something falls out of their hand, or they take something out, they're constantly then immediately picking something else up. Whatever is handy. And it doesn't matter whether it's something wonderful or something terrible, just that it's handy, they'll pick it up and hold it. And sometimes hold it for a very, very long time, and holding is where it's at.

After many, many years of focusing on holding, someone suggests to the person, "You might try not holding. You might try just putting down what you have in your hand and just keeping your hand open." And the person does. And lo and behold, that open hand feels really nice. It feels really relaxed and open, and you can't believe how much you were always clinging and holding, and how tired the hand is from always doing this work of holding. This open hand is so good.

It's a little bit like that with our minds. Our minds unconsciously have this idea that they're always supposed to be thinking about something. And even though we might prefer pleasant things to unpleasant things, the mind picks up what's handy. For all kinds of reasons, it holds onto things. Part of meditation is, in fact, to let go of the holding onto thoughts, quieting the intensity, dialing down the strength of thinking, calming the thinking mind, but also letting go, releasing the mind from its thoughts.

Because of this tendency of the mind to always go on to the next thing, we seldom linger with what it feels like to have let go—that release. In this meditation, I would like to encourage you, as I do this beginning guided meditation and then during the silent part, to focus a little bit more than you normally would do on lingering with the sense of release. Linger with having let go of holding to thoughts, ideas, or whatever it is you're resisting or holding on to, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Then feel what it's like letting go. The open hand, the open mind, the open heart, what it's like without being preoccupied with something.

Beginning the Sitting

To begin the sitting, take a posture that you believe will support you in letting go, support you in releasing your preoccupations. Softly close your eyes. Gently take a few long, slow, and deep breaths. Breathing in deeply, and then releasing, letting go on the exhale. Letting go, releasing. If you breathe deeply and gently let go, extending the exhale a little bit, extended releasing, maybe by relaxing the belly as you breathe out.

Then let your breathing return to normal. With normal breathing, take three breaths, maybe counting one to three. Giving yourself over to feeling the inhale, and letting go with the exhale.

Then let go of that, and take a few moments now to settle into your body. Perhaps feeling the contact of your sitting bones. If you're sitting against your chair or cushion, maybe release your pelvis, release your sitting bones into the pull of gravity. Releasing the muscles around the whole pelvis area so you settle in.

Perhaps releasing the spine. Letting each vertebra receive the one above it. Releasing, letting go of holding along the spine. Settling down to the base of the spine. Releasing or maybe softening around the shoulders. And if things don't relax or release as you go through this, it's enough just to make a kind of space, breathing room for whatever way you are. Maybe relaxing the belly, releasing the holding.

Perhaps releasing the tension, the holding in the face. So much of our expressivity and what we want or don't want can appear very subtly in the muscles of the face. Allow those muscles to soften: around the mouth, the jaws, around the eyes, in the forehead. And then behind the forehead, in the middle of your skull, maybe the area of your brain. Perhaps there too there can be a relaxing, a softening, as if the brain can go from being hard to being very soft. As you exhale, letting the whole mind, the brain, soften to become more like liquid melting.

And then, whatever you're thinking about, see if you can let go of it, let it float away. As you let go, let go into the experience of breathing and staying with the breath, appreciating the release of the exhale. Remember to let go of your thoughts, whatever you're holding on to. And when you let go, appreciate the letting go. Appreciate the openness, the open-handedness. Whatever you relax, whatever you release, appreciate and linger a little bit with what it's like—that absence of clinging, that absence of holding.

In that absence of holding and clinging, invite the experience of breathing into awareness. Letting go of what you're thinking about, and then appreciating what it's like to have let go before you pick something else up. An appreciation that's almost without thinking. Just lingering in the openness and the freedom, the release, the space of having let go of thoughts, for however brief it might be.

Ending the Sitting

To end this sitting, imagine what it's like to have been holding something for a long time, and unable to do anything for other people. Unable to touch them, or stroke a friend's back or shoulder, or give them a gift, with your hand caught up in something. With a hand open, you're available for a different kind of contact. If the heart is closed, it's a very different way of relating to others than if the heart is open. And the same with the mind; if the mind is closed, or caught up, or preoccupied, there's no room for really taking in the other, and to be generous, kind, and supportive to others.

To whatever degree that this meditation practice opens our body, our mind, and our hearts, the expression of that openness is expressed in generosity, kindness, compassion, and care for others that we encounter. In fact, that openness, that release that happens in meditation, is strengthened when those expressions are given a chance to live through us.

So may it be that as we end this sitting, we aspire to give expression into the world, for the benefit of the world, whatever opening, freeing, and calming that meditation has brought to us. May our meditation continue as we walk in the world through our generosity, our compassion, our kindness, and our support. May it be that our meditation practice is for the benefit of the whole world, for ourselves and for others, so that all beings may have a taste of happiness, freedom, and safety. And may we be a contributor to the happiness, safety, and freedom of all beings.